Evil Walks: Dying Light Review

2015-02-09

So Dying Light is a pretty bad ass video game and it’s been getting me though my tough times especially after a hard day at work.What I’ve noticed about the game is that despite the resemblance to Dead Island it feels like it has its own unique persona. Some of the weapons are similar to DI as sledgehammers, knives, axes and throwing stars really make this game. Jumping off the damn roof like a fucking ninja and landing a pipe in the head of a zombie is awesome! Despite similarities the storyline is kind of unique and it really feels like what Dead Island should be.

Thriller Night

I don’t know why but in every zombie game there is some reason to pull people out of the infected zone and there is always someone in the group, a doctor that has a cure or someone who has “special blood”, and for some odd reason there is always someone who wants to kill the doctor or special person. (In an island accent “Yeah we don’t care anymore this is our island. We rule everything and we can kill anyone we want with no remorse.) While I was playing this game I became enraptured in it and realized… Drop kicking zombies is the coolest thing you can do. It’s almost down right therapeutic. But hear me out and see where I’m coming from. Say you’ve had a long day at work and you don’t really feel like putting in a shooter game. You just want to do something to vent your frustration so you go to the zombie game.

The Dead Walk

During your travels in the island of Harran (AKA Zombieland) you will come across plenty of wild zombies Fast ones that rapidly seek to knock you out cold with rapid strikes, strong ones that will own you in one hit and even crazier ones that do all the above…And lets not forget spitters. Lately there are always some type of spitter in a zombie game. But imagine running down the dirty streets of the tropical slums and coming across a shambling biter. It growls low from a decayed throat shambling toward you with merciless eyes and gnashing teeth. With no fear you run towards it with one goal in mind and that goal is to simply whup its ass. The next thing you know you’re airborne looking at the screen as two big feet head straight to it’s face. As it connects the hard vibration you feel from the controller, as well as the rag doll visual effect of the zombie being forced away, reward your lucha like efforts. It’s the greatest feeling in the world and you just want to do it again and again.

So Gruesome You Can Smell It

Zombie drop kicking aside this game is actually visually appealing. The graphics are nice and as detailed as they can get. The streets are filled with many jammed together buildings and each door step has lots of added personality in the form of crates, buckets, baskets and other random items. There is a lot of brown but the forgiveness factor is in the form of the slums being colorful as far as hanging items, colorful roof tops etc, etc. The game really comes to life once you get to the second part of the island. It essentially becomes a fancy looking roof town and that’s great due to the parkour aspect. Not only have you expanded the area of interaction but you have also expanded the choices that can be made as far as traveling. Things especially get interesting when the grappling hook becomes available. You can parkour off of a chimney, jump into the air and just as it looks like you are about to go splat you can shot out the grappling hook in a Spider Man fashion to swing to a safer area. Interaction with the zombies is especially graphic. Biters bring you closer than you would like to their gruesomeness. You can actually see torn clothing,boils, cuts and other zombie like features as you try to push their yellowed, jagged, toothed maw away from you. Thank God this game doesn’t have smell. This Game does have its share of glitches though. I shot a grappling hook towards a building and for some reason it started to pull me into the sky.

Hear the Fear

The sounds of this game are very intense and you soon become very familiar with zombie types and how close they are to you. Also some sounds let you know that you have royally screwed up. The smooth action of a double barrel shotgun is enough to set off blood clogged screams of the faster infected. I found this out the hard way after I got my first gun and went on a zombie shooting spree. Oh the salt! But on the flip side of that the hand to hand weapons are given believable sounds. A slice through the air as you swing an electrically enhanced knife is rewarded with a shocking zap as the walkers are sent to the ground in convulsions. Fire and flame sounds are on point as well. You can even setup zombies for failure by throwing fire crackers and then following then with a Molotov. The chaos that ensues is worth sitting back and watching. Usually a game has great mood music when you are being sent over the edge by a chase scene. A cacophony of zombie sounds blend in well with dark ominous mood music. Dying Light brings the best in heart pumping sounds and does not upset in this area.

Deadly Douchebag

The actual storyline, despite the over use of it, is the fact that the actual character of the game itself feels like he is just running the course of the game. That becomes one of my biggest pet peeves. You run up to a survivor that needs help and instead of being the super secret agent, that you are supposed to be, you become SUPER DOUCHE SAVIOR OF THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! A simple “How can I help?” turns into “What do you need now?” or “What is it this time?” It really fails to connect you to the main character. Speaking of characters most of them become very forgettable. I felt some sort of minor connection to them but for the most part there wasn’t enough of a connection to even tell you their name. The only one I really remember is Rais who seems like a typical bad guy who seems like he’s a want to be Bond villan. Everything becomes a little cliché to the point where you still want to play the game but you’re not really interested in the story. Thankfully there is so much to do as far as side quest that there will always be something there to keep you busy. Activities can range from gathering simple supply to raiding a quarantine zone for premium, untouched items.Some quest are silly and goofy, like finding a tape for a mentally ill man to watch with his “mother”, while others are serious and require your full attention. You want to have as much content as you can in order to get the best out of this game and it does deliver.

Evil RUNS

Speaking of activities, I DO NOT GO OUTSIDE AT NIGHT! There are zombies that will tear your ass a new one, to put it lightly. Just when you have a shotgun ,you think everything is gravy, then they come out of no where looking to squash you and your ego and take your survivor points.They don’t play! They provide jump scares o’ plenty.They run faster, scream louder and hunt harder than any other zombie type in the game. They will gank you without even thinking about it. The game tempts you with extra bonus experience gained only at night but as far as going out at night NOPE! Find a nice little cot, sleep in it and wait until morning. Not worth it! NOPE! NOPE!

Control Your Craft

The control scheme for the most part is well thought out in my opinion. The parkouring aspect of the game kind of flows with the controls you actually have to be looking towards something in order to interact with it. While jumping from roof top to another you have to be facing the ledge that you want to grab as you hold the jump button. I found myself failing in that aspect at times from grabbing a ledge ,that looked like it should be grabbed, ends with a killer fall or and accidental fall into a swarm of zombies. The weapon system is decent but using guns is slightly annoying, The right thumb stick has to be pushed in order to aim but it’s the same stick that controls visual movement. The biggest problem is that it’s too sensitive as you aim and the iron sites are too small in order to really line up your shots, at least just from my POV. Swatting zombies away with make shift weapons is almost on point but the problem comes when you go for a straight decapitation and end up hitting a shoulder. You damn near have to aim for the forehead just to take a zombies head off.

Food For Plenty

One of the coolest modes in this game is the Be the Zombie mode. I could go into depth with a description but I’ll let the video of my game play speak for itself.

STRAIGHT AWESOME! Very intense very addictive. Basically you are either the hunter or the hunted. As the hunted you have to smash zombie nest in order to win the match but as the hunter it gets more devious. You have to reach a certain number of kills in order to win, both sides have to try to stop one and other and there are many weapons and tricks that can be used to do just that. The hunter can stalk survivors from the highest roof tops and pounce on them for an almost instant kill move and if that wasn’t bad enough the hunter can also spit in a group of survivors and command a zombie horde attack. The survivor are not without defense. UV lights weaken a hunter enough to where they can actually do some significant damage.

Final Stand

As much as I like this game I know it won’t be for everyone. That’s why I have to rate it We have a new player. For me I know that I could play this game for hours, but most fans of the FPS genre are expecting more flash and boom with their screen full o’ guns. I can’t say I blame them, Dying Light is a patient game that takes a minute to get going. You aren’t going to start the game off with a gun so don’t expect to pop a lot of heads with countless amounts of lead. You won’t be too thrilled with the story and you will be killed a lot. It’s also more of a game for people who enjoy the survivor aspect of zombie games like this. All in all I can only recommend it if you have played similar games such as Dead Rising,Dead Island or other similar zombie genera games. For anyone else that may be slightly curious but unsure you might want to Red Box this game so you don’t have to fully commit.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this review and found it helpful. And until next time.